Olympics: Green light for GB football team

THE Football Association will press ahead with efforts to find a way to field a Great Britain football team for the 2012 Olympics in London after being given the green light by FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

THE Football Association will press ahead with efforts to find a way to field a Great Britain football team for the 2012 Olympics in London after being given the green light by FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

FIFA have given written guarantees that a British team will compete in the 2012 Games and that their participation will not affect the four home nations' separate representation on the game's world governing body.

FA executive director David Davies, the FA's representative on the British Olympic Association (BOA) and the head of a working group looking at ways of fielding a British team in 2012, welcomed Blatter's comments.

He told PA Sport: "What Mr Blatter has said is clearly welcomed by those of us who believe we have a positive contribution to make to football and the Olympics.

"We would hope people will be open-minded about this and certainly FIFA have made their position absolutely clear.

"We have had a working party looking at the options and we will come forward with those and see what is the best way to achieve unanimity."

Britain qualify automatically as Olympic hosts but it is unlikely that there will be a British Olympic football team beyond 2012 because no united British team plays in the qualifying tournament, which is the European Under-21 championships.

Blatter told a media briefing in London: "We have confirmed in writing that they have to provide a Great Britain team for the 2012 Olympics but the British associations will not lose the rights and privileges acquired back in 1947.

"They will play with one team but it is up to them how they do it. It can be a mixed team, it can be from just one of the home nations, whatever they want to do."

Scotland have been most reluctant to do anything that might compromise their separate position on FIFA but Blatter said he had reassured the Scottish FA a British Olympic team for 2012 would not have such an effect.

That reluctance may now change because Glasgow are bidding to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games and will need the support of the BOA.

Successful

Meanwhile, Blatter also confirmed that goal-line technology will be used in next year's World Cup finals if an experiment later this month proves successful.

Four stadia are being fitted out with the 'smartball' technology for the FIFA Under-17 world championships in Peru which will see the referee sent a signal every time the ball goes out of play or into the goal.

Delegates from the International FA Board will attend the tournament to monitor the experiment and a decision on introducing the system for the World Cup will be taken at a meeting in October.

Blatter told a media briefing in London: "We will definitely use the technology in Germany next year if the experiment works in Peru."

The tournament in Peru will see 32 matches played with adidas' smartball system where the ball contains a microchip that sends a signal whenever it passes over sensors in the touchline.

The referee is alerted by a special device worn on his wrist and should then be in a position to make the correct decision.

The system should bring an end to controversies over goal-line decisions such as the one in 1966 which helped England win the biggest prize in football.

Blatter added that FIFA were reluctant to go any further down the road to bringing in new technology.

He said: "This goal-line technology is enough. Football must keep its human face and must accept errors. If we start to make it too scientific this game will lose its fascination."

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